Singapore’s national water agency PUB and Evoqua Water Technologies have agreed to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to further develop electrochemical desalination technology that aims to improve energy and cost efficiencies in seawater desalination.
Evoqua, which has been presently engaged in a demonstration with PUB of initial feasibility of advanced electrochemical desalination technology, will now explore the design, construction, installation and evaluation of a system comprising Evoqua E-Desal equipment to produce drinking water from seawater with an eventual capacity of 1 million gal per day (mgd).
PUB and Evoqua will commission the initial phase of the demo project by Dec. 31, 2014. The MOU will be signed at the Singapore International Water Week Desalination and Water Reuse Business Forum at 2 p.m. June 4 in Basement 2, Expo Hall D.
“R&D has been, and will continue to be vital to PUB, and collaborations with international partners such as Evoqua Water Technologies will help us co-create solutions that ensure our water supply remains sustainable and affordable,” said Harry Seah, PUB chief technology officer. “We look forward to working with Evoqua Water Technologies to further develop electrochemical desalination technology and achieve higher energy and cost efficiencies in this area.”
“The next phase of our relationship with PUB Singapore is the natural evolution of our commitment to further developing this promising electrochemical desalination technology,” said Rodney Aulick, Evoqua senior vice president of products and technology. “The MOU is also the latest milestone in our EDsalination technology which recently was commercialized with its first OEM agreement.”
Evoqua announced May 21 that it will exclusively supply HydroNovation Inc. with a proprietary electrochemical cassette containing Evoqua’s newly developed ion-selective membranes for Hydronovation’s HydroDI “saltless softeners” systems targeting residential and commercial point-of entry (POE) applications such as food and beverage outlets.
Evoqua’s low-pressure electrodialysis membrane technology enables water output quality to be tuned by power adjustments to minimize footprint and energy consumption. Research and development of the technology began in 2008 when Evoqua, then Siemens Water Technologies, won a global competition for a three-year matching grant funded by the Singapore Environmental & Water Industry Programme Office. The low pressure electrodesalination technology has since continued to be refined to progress to increasingly higher volumes of treatment capacity.
The company will continue to develop the electrochemical technology for the municipal, industrial brackish and seawater desalination markets.
Source: Evoqua Water Technologies
